


Devotion (of heart, of mind, of soul)

by CelestialSilences



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, And Devotion, Explicit Consent, Hyunjin's long hair, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, Love, M/M, Magic, Mild Sexual Content, No power imbalances!, Soulbonds, Supernatural Elements, They both just think the other is beautiful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:08:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25113670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelestialSilences/pseuds/CelestialSilences
Summary: Lee Felix lives a listless, miserable existence, subsisting only in desperate expectation of the moment when he'll finally be free.Meeting Hyunjin makes it come sooner than he'd expected.
Relationships: Hwang Hyunjin/Lee Felix
Comments: 23
Kudos: 213





	Devotion (of heart, of mind, of soul)

**Author's Note:**

> Hyunjin has been killing me this comeback and I wrote all of this in a distraught bisexual haze :)))
> 
> (Thanks as always to my lovely beta, Gwen!)

Felix is seventeen when he first finds the shrine. 

He’s two months away from coming of age, counting down the days with an eagerness he’s never felt before in his life, and spending every possible second in the meantime away from home and in the forest. Being an adult will mean freedom, limited by his parents’ whims though it will be, and in the meantime he’s stretching his fledgling wings of independence in the only way he can. 

Being seventeen has some perks, at least; Felix, who never used to be allowed away from the watchful eyes of his parents while out in the woods, is now allowed to roam them freely, so long as he keeps his clothes clean and comes home before dark. Since all Felix wants to do is exist without feeling entirely suffocated in the way he does at home, this is no real burden. 

The forest is beautiful, and the hours melt away like candle wax under a flame when Felix walks through it each day, tracing deer paths and climbing fallen logs to watch timid gray rabbits and pick bouquets of brilliant wildflowers. Sometimes Felix can barely find his way home before the sun sets, and on those evenings he practically bolts out of the woods, compass in hand and crashing through the undergrowth so as to avoid his parent’s ire. Even then, he still finds it in himself to appreciate the way the evening sun burns cherry red and paints the trees in a rainbow of shades, how fireflies begin to emerge as night begins and create a luminescent lime starscape in the darkness. 

When he finally stumbles upon the shrine after several weeks of daily trips, he almost doesn’t see it at first- its structure is near-swallowed by plants, the forest well into the process of reclaiming its lost territory, and what is visible is made of wood, some kind of mahogany lacquered over with magic to keep it from rotting and warping with time. Felix stares at it for a moment, surprised to see something like this so deep in the woods -every church he’s ever been to has always been in the center of its respective town, a glowing beacon of splendor amidst the other, lesser buildings- and after a moment decides to cautiously approach. 

_Don’t touch anything,_ he can practically hear his father say. _Old places like this always carry bad magic, and any shrine this deep in the woods is probably for a Demon._

Upon entering the building, Felix doesn’t detect any of the oppressive, dark energy he knows accompanies Demonic presence, confirming his suspicions that if there ever were Demons in this place, they’re by now long gone. Beyond that, the shrine seems entirely harmless; it smells like rotten leaves and is covered in dust and dirt, clearly having fallen victim to decades of neglect. 

There are signs it was once quite pretty- the few spots on the stone floor left uncovered by grime reveal beautifully carved stone tiles, and the wooden pillars that support the pavilion are engraved with swooping lines of golden paint. As Felix slowly looks around, taking in all of the details in unabashed awe, a silhouette appears in the corner of his eye. 

He starts at first, thinking there’s someone watching him, but upon closer inspection, he realizes the figure at the front of the shrine is just a statue. Its marble body is still shiny and perfectly intact despite the general decay of the rest of the building, and Felix curiously steps closer to get a proper look at it. 

Despite being near-enveloped in moss and vines, it’s still visibly a masterpiece. A painstakingly detailed kite perches upon the statue’s shoulder, its wings slightly flared as if in a show of dominance, and the onyx jewels of its beady eyes seem to stare directly into Felix’s soul when he looks at it. The statue itself is of a young man, clad in light armor and with a sheathed rapier on each hip. One hand is brushing its respective sword’s hilt, and the other, palm up and slightly outstretched as if encouraging Felix to take it, is gashed at the wrist to allow a mess of bleeding-heart vine to drip from the wound like fresh blood, pooling on the floor until it brushes the tips of Felix’s boots. His face is tilted skyward just enough to make his features indiscernible -and since the statue is raised slightly off the ground, Felix has no hope of seeing them- but the beautiful tresses of his hair, looking far too delicate to be carved from stone, fall to just below his jawline. 

The statue looks _alive_ in a way he’s never seen before, like if one said the right word the marble of its body would crumble away to reveal flesh and bone beneath. It’s clearly meant to be the focal point of this place, a thing people would willingly trek miles into the forest for. Glancing around in wonder at the pavilion once more, Felix comes to a realization. 

He isn’t sure why there’s an abandoned shrine so deep in the forest, or why the statue within it is so impossibly captivating, but one thing is clear- he’s stumbled upon the temple of a god. 

  
  


His name is Hyunjin, Felix learns. 

Officially, he’s known as the god of grace, passion, and poignancy; he is the being who allows people’s emotions to stoke the fires of devotion in their bones into a blaze, who pulls them forward by their heartstrings to achieve their highest ambitions and find catharsis in the aftermath. Hyunjin is the patron god of dancers, of swordfighters, of Demonslayers. He’s symbolized by swallow-tailed kites, rapiers, roses, and bleeding-heart vine. Everything about him is flawlessly elegant and refined, as though he was invented by some fanciful artist and painstakingly tailored to fit the human ideal of perfection. 

And _oh,_ Hyunjin is indeed perfect. There are only a handful of drawings of him in the dozens of books on deities Felix pores through, and though the outfits and details vary, there’s one theme that persists- Hyunjin is absolutely beautiful. His body is as slender and graceful as willow tresses and he dances like fiery leaves on the autumn wind. He has angular, near cat-like features, lips plusher than rose petals, and a mole under one eye that stories say is a lasting mark from a duel with Jisung, a long-forgotten trickster deity with whom he shared a fierce rivalry. Somehow he doesn’t even need the natural glow his godhood brings to be striking- even if he were as human as Felix, Hyunjin would still be utterly gorgeous.

In some depictions his hair is blacker than night, as blue as the ocean, or shimmering gold; his eyes seem to shift between every color of the rainbow and then some. In one particularly beautiful painting the calligraphic lines of his body are accented by glittering piercings and the flowing lines of tattoos, taking the form of flowers and feathers and making him almost too ethereal to lay eyes on, much in the way one cannot stare into the sun without going blind. Felix looks anyway, and it takes everything in him not to rip the painting from its book and take it home with him. 

There are stories, too; tales of him saving the faithful from danger, of slicing their enemies to ribbons with his swords and taking them to dance, waltzing away their pain and fear and leaving them with nothing but liquid ecstasy running through their veins and imprints of rose-lipped kisses on their cheeks. 

Or so the legends go- Hyunjin is beautiful, yes, and powerful too, but he is also a very old god, and that makes him a very, very dead one. 

Gods may be living, near-immortal beings imbued with the gift of celestial fire, but no god left alone and abandoned for such a long time could possibly survive. There used to be hundreds of deities, their patronage ranging from the immense -the oceans, the earth- to the miniscule- the color of spring’s first blooms, the way mist dances across the plains each morning. But as worshippers continued to congregate, forcibly or otherwise, around the most beloved and powerful gods, smaller deities began to fade away, their powers absorbed by their stronger counterparts. Much in the way human spirits need to be remembered to continue existing after their physical death, gods need to be loved and worshipped in order to live. 

Hyunjin’s shrine is indeed hallowed earth, but it is no testimony to anything living. It’s a graveyard built for one. 

The thought makes Felix deeply, inexplicably sad. Maybe it’s because he knows what it’s like to be lonely and forgotten by everyone who once cared for him. Maybe it’s the way Hyunjin’s eyes seemed so bright yet so anguished in his drawings, as if he knew of his inevitable fate long before it came to pass. Regardless, Felix resolves to visit the shrine again, this time with an appropriately reverent offering. 

He brings flowers first, appropriate to honor both the living and the dead. They’re simple wildflowers in the beginning, little things he finds on his way to the shrine. It’s awkward at first, brushing dirt and dust likely older than him away from the finely crafted wooden altar in the center of the shrine to set the plants down, but as he lights an incense stick aflame and watches the smoke curl around his face like a curious snake while he prays, something about the whole thing just feels _right._

The next day he makes a detour up to the hills around the north side of town to gather some larkspur, the prettiest flower currently in bloom, to offer. He picks three dozen and they last nearly two weeks under his careful care at home, kept in water supplemented by magical fertilizer bags until he takes them to Hyunjin. 

Eventually he finds a traveling merchant selling roses blessed by a nature deity, their cerulean petals a richer hue than the sky and their texture softer than velvet. Felix brings two of them on his next visit, and somehow, despite the dry, oppressive heat of summer, they stay blooming and healthy for weeks. 

After that he brings trinkets. A necklace of his aunt’s, given to him only because it was too flashy for his mother. A quill made from an eagle feather- not a kite, but the best Felix could do. At some point he leaves behind his compass, no longer needing it to make his way through the forest each day. 

The gifts, ultimately meaningless though they may be, become a source of comfort and purpose for Felix. It feels good to do something purely for someone else’s benefit, to be able to feel like he’s taking care of something. While he’s not exactly spoiled, his parents so rarely let him do anything for himself that being allowed any sort of agency with his time and possessions is deeply enjoyable. 

(He also really, _really_ likes Hyunjin- he’s eagerly memorized every word in every book he’s found on the god, and Felix’s favorite depictions of the deity are permanently seared into his brain to the point of haunting his dreams at night. Hyunjin is captivating, and Felix might as well be the tiniest of moons trapped in dizzying orbit around him, with no chance of ever escaping his gravity.)

But when he’s all out of fresh offerings, when he can do little more each day than burn incense and meditate within the shrine’s walls, Felix decides to try a new method of showing his devotion- cleaning. The shrine is ancient, likely at least as old as the nearby town, and as such, it’s accumulated an extensive blanket of dirt as it’s aged. The structure itself is fine at least, being protected by the building’s inherent magic, so Felix’s work will involve much more cleansing than repair. 

Thus, a new daily routine begins. Waking up early and stealing the broom plus a few other cleaning supplies from home, he hikes up to the shrine each day, offering a quick prayer to Hyunjin and burning a small bundle of white sage before setting to work. Felix sweeps the floor first, removing decades’ worth of dust, dead leaves, and the numerous spiderwebs strung up in every corner. The spiders themselves he carefully takes outside, setting them on trees and bushes to return them to the forest.

Almost immediately the building starts looking better. Since the floors and walls are intact beneath their coating of dirt, a little bit of dusting and washing goes a long way. Felix scrapes the walls and pillars clean of lichens and moss, digs grime out of the elaborate grooves in each floor tile, and even climbs a nearby tree to leap onto the pavilion’s roof, where he removes fallen tree branches and sweeps dust off of the clay shingles. 

He leaves the statue alone. Touching it even to clean it would feel wrong, like he needs some sort of permission first. Hyunjin’s statue is mesmerizing even with moss and ivy creeping up its sides, and the presence of the plants makes him seem all the more radiant, as if the very forest is so enchanted with him that it cannot help but approach. 

Felix talks often while he works. Having never had many friends growing up, talking to himself simply to hear someone’s voice is a habit deeply ingrained within him, and if he keeps the statue just at the edge of his peripherals, he can pretend he has a friend beside him. He tells Hyunjin about his day, about the weather, about rumors regarding the Demon King’s supposed resurrection. Sometimes he even sings, shy despite there being no one around for miles, and he swears the atmosphere in the shrine always feels brighter by the time he stops. 

In the evenings he heads home with green-tipped fingers and feeling lighter than he has in a long time. His parents scold him for ruining his nails and developing calluses on his palms, but the reprimands melt out of Felix’s head like snow in the midday sun every time he sees the shrine and how much better it looks. It almost seems like a proper place of worship now, the sort of building that could be the centerpiece of a town and admired by every traveling passerby. Felix doesn't want that to ever be the case, though- he’s grown selfish about Hyunjin’s shrine, desperate to keep it a secret all his own. 

“I’m not sure why I’m doing any of this,” he remarks to Hyunjin one day. “I’m not even very religious, you know.” Felix’s parents aren’t, so he was raised the same. He respects deities of course, offering them the appropriate level of reverence whenever he finds himself at a holy site, but has no patron god to call his own. His parents don’t want him to bind himself to anyone, despite it being a hallmark of one’s adolescence; they claim it’s to protect him from “making a mistake,” but he knows the real reason. Deciding to devote oneself to a god often shapes a person’s entire life, strengthening their innate magic through their deity’s blessings and allowing them to excel at their chosen career. Felix’s parents want him to swear to only one god- Taehyung, god of luck, luxury, and royalty. 

Felix isn’t a royal. His parents are desperate to change that. If they had any idea he was doing this, wasting his time out in the forest every day to feed his infatuation with a long-dead deity, they’d likely ban him from ever leaving the house again. Even the thought of being stuck at home all day makes a dull panic twist in Felix’s gut, but fortunately, his parents are entirely uninterested in how he spends his days. So long as he doesn’t come home bleeding or having ruined his clothes, they couldn’t care less. 

Felix blinks, and realizes he’s been lost in thought for so long that a sparrow has flown into the shrine and made itself comfortable atop Hyunjin’s head. “Hello,” he tells it, and the bird promptly takes off, darting back into the forest as quick as it had come. Felix sighs. 

“I really like it here,” he says softly, as if the words are a secret even the forest cannot be allowed to hear. “It feels safe.”

When he leaves in the evening as the sun sets, Felix swears he can feel the statue’s eyes watching him. 

  
  


That night, Felix dreams.  
  
It’s midday and warm, yet the sky is bleeding scarlet red as if it were evening. He’s in his bedroom, but there’s none of the sense of wariness and discomfort Felix normally feels when he’s at home. Rising from where he sits on his bed, he pads over to his window, taking in the way cotton candy clouds dot the sky and the air is disconcertingly, impossibly still.  
  
Suddenly the universe shifts in some indeterminable way, and Felix becomes aware of a presence beside him. Despite their mysterious appearance, Felix feels no fear; in fact, a tender happiness blooms in his chest as a hand interlaces with his and a head drops onto his shoulder.  
  
Felix rests his cheek against the head of the body next to him. Soft hair tickles his face. Operating on instinct he never knew he had, he tilts his head and presses a chaste kiss to their hair.  
  
A laugh resounds in his ears like crystalline handbells, high and delighted. “I love you,” a voice says, and the sound is unfamiliar but somehow something Felix has always known, the song of the universe made audible to him for the first time. “Never forget that.”  
  
“I love you too,” Felix’s lips move on their own to speak through the euphoric giggles bubbling up in his throat, their sound like brook water falling over stones.  
  
Suddenly there are plush lips pressed to his neck and fingers tracing their way down his abdomen, their touch light like spring breeze and just cool enough to make Felix squirm, a delicious shiver running down his spine. Somewhere in the space between two heartbeats he’s returned to his bed, the sheets beneath him far softer than they ever have been in waking.  
  
The lips trail down, down, down his throat and across his sternum in the way flowers bloom from tumbling vines, the contact silken and searing all at once. A slight nip at the skin laid over his heart, as if testing to see how easily it might be ripped out of him. Felix would gladly tear it out himself if it meant he could continue to be adored like this, balanced perfectly on the needle-thin line between tension and release, in aching desperation and ecstasy all at once.  
  
Fingers brush his hipbones, their touch exploratory and near-ticklish at first, but when a particularly sharp nip to his abdomen makes him jolt, they suddenly grip him with a bruising force. Felix arches up into the feeling, letting out a soft, pleading noise, and the laughter he receives as a reward is lovelier than the finest of music.  
  
Lower and lower, teasing and adoring, the kisses continue until even the gentlest of touches draw staccato notes of bliss from his lips and Felix feels moments away from weeping in sheer need. Then, finally, _finally,_ he feels soft pressure on the place he wants it most-  
  
Felix wakes up breathless and aching, and later, when he glances at himself in the mirror, he finds a bruise pressed into the delicate skin of his throat. It looks a little bit like a rose.  
  


  
Felix’s parents deciding to send him to the capital to get married shouldn’t come as a surprise, but he’s blindsided by the news all the same. He’s about to be of age, after all, and the longer he waits to get married, the less his chances of finding a suitable spouse will be. 

Felix protests before he can think to collect himself, much to the irritation of his parents.  
  
“Do you have a reason not to go?” his father asks, voice low and dangerous. He sounds the way he used to when Felix forgot to do his chores as a child- disappointed and frustrated, like he’s a broken part in some machine that far too often needs fixing.  
  
Felix has reasons, of course, but _I don’t want to_ and _I’m devoted to the shrine of a long-dead god_ aren’t good enough answers to sway his father into anything and he knows it. He shrugs instead, bowing his head until his hair tumbles into his eyes and obscures his vision. “It’s nothing, father. I would be honored to go to the capital.”  
  
“We’ve already sent a letter to the court matchmakers. Duke Kim of the Northern Cliffs is apparently very interested in you as a potential match for his daughter.” His mother sounds so proud of him despite the fact that he’s done nothing, that all he’ll ever be in life is a pretty face marrying into a rich family. 

Suddenly there’s a hand in his face, pushing his hair out of his eyes and roughly tucking it behind his ears. “The court is going to love you,” his mother coos, tipping his head up to inspect it in the light. “We’ll just put a little powder over your freckles and fix your hair, and every lord and lady in the kingdom will want you marrying into their family.”  
  
“You might even get to make your bonding vows to Taehyung,” his father says, the words light as if in jest, but Felix knows he’s stating an expectation. His parents won’t approve any union that’s not with the child of royalty or something approximate. Anything less would be failure. 

His mother laughs. “Imagine that! Us, devoted to the god of royalty.” 

She says it like they haven’t spent every single day of Felix’s life doing anything they possibly can to rise up in status. Molding their only son into the picture of nobility at the expense of his freedom and happiness. In their eyes, he’s little more than a doll to be dressed and posed and displayed until he’s fulfilled his purpose, and after that, well- there’s only one thing that happens to dolls when children outgrow them. 

“Yeah,” Felix mutters. “Imagine.”

That night Felix lies in bed and thinks about devoting himself to Taehyung. He wonders what the god asks of his followers. Certainly nothing like cleaning out shrines deep in the forest with only birdsong and impossibly gorgeous statues for company. From what he’s heard, Taehyung is a fickle god, generally contemptuous of most of his followers despite accepting their devotion vows. Most people only want to bond with him for the status boost, anyway. 

Felix doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life trapped in an empty marriage and tied to a god he feels nothing for by the shackles of mutual disdain. While he can’t change one of those outcomes, he can certainly do something about the other. 

So there, in the dark with no one but the stars to judge him, Felix makes a decision. 

It’s equal parts an act of rebellion and the culmination of something that has been steadily building since Felix first laid eyes upon Hyunjin’s statue. Perhaps the deity, long dead though he may be, is tugging on Felix’s heartstrings to pull him forward all the same.

The ingredients are simple enough to gather- while some gods demand immense sacrifices and near-impossible oblations to earn their blessings, Hyunjin does not seem to have any desire for such decadence. 

Red thread of the finest quality, braided by Felix’s own hands and left to soak in a jar of fresh rainwater for three days. Selenite chunks, as much as Felix could afford without his parents noticing the missing coins, and a vial of red wine the color of fresh blood. Dried larkspur petals, some scattered amidst the other items and the rest left on the shrine’s incense plate to be burned when the ceremony is complete. 

The thread is to be worn around his wrist for the first part of the ceremony, but the other items are tied up in a bundle of cerulean silk and set in the center of the altar. 

Then comes one final ingredient- a sacrifice. The books never specified what kind; only that it had to be meaningful. Felix has few possessions he truly values and even fewer spiritual gifts to offer, but there is one thing all his own he’s in no short supply of. He’d sharpened a hunting knife to an impossibly fine point in preparation, both to use in place of a sword as a symbolic object for Hyunjin and as a tool with which to perform his sacrifice. 

Before he’d found Hyunjin’s shrine, Felix had found exactly one method of rebellion against his parent’s constant overbearance- his hair. Silvery-blonde, fine, and silky, Felix loves growing it out, and when his parents eventually got tired of tracking him down once a month to cut it, they allowed him to keep it as long as he wanted, so long as he agreed to chop it all off whenever his parents eventually wanted him to. It’s his one form of free self-expression, one of his favorite things about himself, and if it really has to go, there’s no better way in his eyes than this.

Taking a deep breath, Felix adjusts his grip on the knife, raises it behind his head, and starts to saw. For a few moments, nothing but a papery sort of crunching noise can be heard, but eventually every last lock of Felix’s hair falls away from his head. 

It hurts to see his hair on the ground, finely brushed and with a ribbon still loosely wrapped around it, but in a way it’s almost freeing. At least Felix cut it on his own terms, a gift for someone he cares about, as opposed to it being unwillingly ripped from him when his parents decided it was time. 

Hopefully Hyunjin will appreciate the gesture. 

Tightening the ribbon around his hair to keep it all together, he adds his final offering to the rest of his collection in the silk and ties it all up into a neat bundle. The knife he sets at the top of the altar in a small circle he’d drawn from ashes, connected to four others to form a diamond with his sacrifice in the center. In the other rings he’s chosen to place a sparrow skull, a pair of his mother’s prized aquamarine earrings, and his favorite hair ribbon, gorgeously embroidered with flowers and hummingbirds in fine golden thread. 

It’s not perfect by any means, but hopefully it will do. Beggars can’t be choosers, after all, and Felix is nothing if not the former. 

The next challenge is to determine if Hyunjin is even alive and strong enough to accept offerings. Even a single worshipper can sustain a god, so long as they’re devoted enough, and while Felix would like to think he’s met that criteria, there’s always a chance he could be wrong. 

He strikes a match and whispers a soft word to it, informing of the fire of its purpose as a sacrificial burning, then sets the offerings aflame. The blaze rapidly transforms from a dull orange smolder to a roaring, brilliant indigo, its smoke rapidly painting the shrine in a purple haze, and the shift is a clear sign that his offering has been accepted. Hyunjin is listening to him. Felix’s heartbeat is so erratic it feels like it might seize up and stop altogether, and he’s shaking so badly he can barely fold his hands together in prayer as he sinks into a kneel in front of the altar.

No turning back now. 

There had been only one recorded bonding covenant for Hyunjin that Felix had been able to find, and even that was incomplete. Drawing on what he knows from other church visits, he’d filled in the gaps himself, then whispered the words to himself nonstop every night before the ceremony until he knew them better than his own name. When he opens his mouth to speak now, his vows flow out with ease, voice even and calm despite the way his insides are churning like an ocean in a typhoon. 

“O Hyunjin, god of grace and elegance- in peace and in war, from within and from without, please hear my plea and heed my prayer.

I give my mind for you to fill as you see fit. I give my heart for you to hold as you wish. I give my soul for you to light you in the dark. I ask only for your blessings in return, and for your grace to smile upon me in everything that I do. 

I, Lee Felix, offer myself freely to be yours until the end of time. I will worship no other and be conduit for the magic of no other. My heart will beat for you, my voice will sing for you, and my soul will burn for you and only you. 

Thank you, my God, and amen.”

Heart thundering so fast it feels like it might burst, Felix undoes the knot of his bracelet with shaking hands and leans forward to affix it to Hyunjin’s outstretched wrist. He goes so far as to double knot the bracelet closed, tying the red string of his fate to Hyunjin for all of eternity. 

Then, with the ritual complete, Felix lets his eyes slip closed and waits for Hyunjin to bless him. 

At first nothing happens. The air is perfectly, totally still. The birds have stopped singing, animals have stopped moving, and even the wind has ceased blowing as if in expectation for whatever will come next. Felix’s lungs stall in matching anticipation, the sound of his heartbeat reaching a roaring crescendo in his ears. 

He waits for what could be minutes or hours, straining to detect any sort of shift in the surrounding atmosphere, but all he senses is the distant hum of a cicada and the damp press of summer humidity against his skin. After what feels like an eternity, when even the brightest embers of his offering have finally been extinguished, Felix is forced to admit the truth. 

It didn’t work. Hyunjin rejected him. 

At the realization Felix falls to the ground unconsciously, legs giving out under the weight of his own pure anguish. Ironically, he looks almost as if he’s still in prayer. 

_He doesn’t want me. I’m not enough._ Felix lets out a soft sob and presses a hand to his mouth so tight it’s painful, as if trying to forcibly trap his sadness, his shame, within him. _I’ll never be enough._

Not for his parents, not for the court, and now not even for Hyunjin. The god he’d taken care of for months, who he’d literally revived from the dead with the power of his own care and affection, won’t even bond with him. 

He can’t move at first, can’t do anything but weep in the face of his own inadequacy, but suddenly it’s all _too much_ and even the mere thought of Hyunjin makes him want to scream. Without even bothering to clean anything up from the ritual, Felix bolts. 

His mother is delighted to see his hair trimmed down to a “reasonable length” when he gets home. Felix barely spares her a glance before trudging into his room and collapsing into his bed, tears already running rivers down his cheeks. 

The morning of Felix’s birthday dawns cloudy and cool, with a fierce wind rattling against the windows from the moment he wakes up. It sounds a little bit like wailing, the sound depressingly reflective of his forlorn state of mind. 

The court matchmakers will collect him today and take him to the capital so he can start his new life. Felix wonders for a moment if he can pretend to have caught a sudden bout of the summer flu, but everything he’s heard about the matchmakers suggests they’d throw him in a carriage and take him anyway. Once a person has been assigned to their care, nothing short of death will release them from their contract before its completion. 

He throws on the appropriate traveling clothes quickly, knowing that dragging the process out would do little more than encourage his mother to dress him herself. The last time that happened, Felix’s face had ended up so thoroughly coated with powder he sweated through it in about fifteen minutes and looked like a poorly-painted ghost for the rest of the day. 

“Felix!” his father shouts just as he’s finishing up, running his hands through his irritatingly short hair in an ultimately futile attempt to keep it out of his eyes for more than ten seconds at a time. “Come out here- the matchmakers have arrived.”

“Yes, father!” he calls back reflexively, and sure enough, when Felix glances out of his window, he sees four horses trot by- two pulling an ornate black carriage, and the others with guards on their backs, the royal crest emblazoned upon their armor. They look more like prison guards than his new patrons. 

As Felix hears the carriage screech to a stop in front of his door and the guards dismount from their steeds, chatting boisterously as they do, panic rises in his chest like a river in a flash flood until something within him finally snaps. He _will not_ do this. He will not live the rest of his life out trapped in the silken web of high society, doing nothing but gossiping at charity balls and hiring other people to manage his land. This isn’t what Felix is meant for. 

Maybe the only purpose he has in his life is to spend the rest of it tending to Hyunjin’s shrine, a lone, forsaken worshipper and a keeper of the almost-dead. Maybe he’ll never marry or raise children, but he can’t bring himself to care- he never particularly wanted those things anyway. At least caring for the shrine makes him _happy_. 

Hyunjin may not want Felix, but Felix certainly wants Hyunjin. Anything is a preferable alternative to the capital at this point, and the shrine is the only place in the world where he’s ever felt safe. Though he may have rejected him, Hyunjin is no malicious god, and he surely will not begrudge Felix the right to hide there after all he’s done for the deity. 

With that thought in mind, Felix throws open his bedroom window, vaults out of it, and bolts. 

The forest is still dark at this hour, the shade from the trees and lack of sunlight causing everything to blend together into a mess of olive green blobs. Still, Felix has been traveling through these woods every day for months- he could navigate them in his sleep by now. 

He hasn’t been running for long when the sound of shouts becomes distantly audible, and Felix realizes with horror that his parents must have discovered his escape. If the guards are good runners or have decided to remount their horses, he’s done for. They’ll literally drag him to the capital if that’s what it takes. 

Throwing himself over fallen logs and narrowly dodging trees, Felix keeps moving, ignoring the way his lungs seize and his legs burn. If he makes it to Hyunjin, he’ll be safe. 

_Come on come on come on-_

When the curved, swooping roof of the shrine finally comes into view, Felix feels as though he could cry with relief. Its elegant structure has never looked so inviting, and he darts inside of the building as quick as he can, slumping against a pillar to rest the moment his boots touch tile. 

The problem with Hyunjin’s shrine, beautiful though it may be, is that it’s a truly awful place to hide in. The pagoda has no doors and walls that only enclose the half of its interior where Hyunjin’s statue rests. Beyond crouching behind the altar and hoping he’s shaken the guards off, there isn’t too much Felix can do, unless-

Hyunjin’s statue isn’t that much larger than him, being human-sized, but there’s enough of a carpeting of moss and other plants on and around it that Felix could potentially use it as cover. It’s better than the altar, at the very least; the only way someone could find him there is if they deliberately checked behind it. Decision made, he steps quickly towards the statue, trying his best to keep his steps quiet. Felix grips Hyunjin’s cold marble hand tightly and pulls himself up onto his pedestal before slipping behind the statue’s back and hunching down as small as he can manage. Absently, he realizes this is the first time he’s ever touched the deity. 

“Please,” he whispers- a sob, a plea, a prayer. He lets his head fall back until his skull meets cool stone. “Help me, Hyunjin.” 

“There!” one of the guards shouts, their voice far, far too close, and Felix’s next breath catches in his throat before dropping to his stomach like a stone. “I saw something.”

The sound of boots crunching over leaves grows steadily louder until it shifts to the click of heels on stone tile. Some dark, nameless sort of rage fills Felix at the realization that they’re in _Hyunjin’s temple_ , the sacred space of _his god,_ and they’re likely to turn the place upside down in their carelessness. For a moment a wave of sharp, righteous anger almost outweighs his choking fear, and Felix balls his hands into fists so tight his nails draw blood. 

“What the…” one of the guards mumbles. “What is this for?”

“Who cares?” The other asks. “Let’s just get the boy and go. We’re already late.” 

“Come on, kid,” the first man sings derisively. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.” 

Footsteps creep closer and closer to the statue, and Felix waits, eyes squeezed shut and shaking, for his inevitable fate. Hopefully they won’t be too rough with him when they cart him off to the capital. 

But the guards never get that far. 

_“Leave this place,”_ someone hisses, their voice high as a songbird’s yet low as an earthquake all at once. _“Now.”_

“Who the hell are y-” one of the guards begins, only to promptly cut himself off with a scream. The sound of metal on metal rings out, and Felix desperately wants to look but he’s entirely frozen in fear, unable to peek around the statue even the slightest bit to see what’s going on. If he wasn’t already cowering on the ground, he’d have fallen to the floor long ago in sheer distress. 

“In the name of the crown, I order you to cease your resistance at once!” the other guard shouts, tone disconcertingly quavery. “This matter does not concern you!”

 _“I bow to no human throne,”_ the being replies haughtily. _“And you are encroaching upon what is rightfully mine.”_

Felix wonders, as abject terror crawls its way up his spine and digs its claws into his bones, if he’s somehow stumbled across a Demon. With all of the sage and protective herbs he’s been burning here, it seems impossible that one would willingly enter Hyunjin’s shrine, but what else could it possibly be? 

Another shout rings out from behind Felix, and the clanging melody of blade on blade starts up again. Someone snarls, sharp and furious as a jungle cat, and the sounds of fighting cut off abruptly. He’s not sure who he wants to have won- would it be better to be punished for inadvertently luring royals guards into an ambush, or to have his soul devoured by a Demon? 

Before he can make any sort of choice, the outcome proves to have been already decided for him. “Felix,” the mysterious being from earlier says, their voice suddenly lacking any of its earlier gravitas and instead sweet and musical like meadowlark song. “Are you alright?”

They sound heartbreakingly worried, nothing like the hissing, seductive croon of a Demon, and despite the unknowable danger behind him Felix slowly forces his aching body to turn around and peek out from behind the cover of the statue. 

Felix takes one tiny step out from behind his hiding place to look, and upon seeing what’s before him he promptly stumbles his way down from the pedestal and past the altar in pure shock, legs jerkily falling forward of their own accord. 

_Hyunjin_ is standing in front of the shrine’s altar, a gleaming rapier in each hand and clad all in white. His eyes glow a captivating emerald like the prettiest of flora, and his hair, swept up in a loose high ponytail, is a delicate honey-blonde. Jewelry of impossibly delicate silver drips from his wrists and ears and tinkles as he moves like gentle rainfall. Somehow even the god’s statue, the most beautiful thing Felix has ever had the pleasure of beholding before this point, pales in comparison to the real thing. Hyunjin looks like summer personified; he encapsulates every beautiful thing Felix has ever seen in the forest and then some. 

He’s ethereal beyond description. All Felix can do is stare, drinking in the sight before him like a flower absorbing sunlight, and it takes an embarrassingly long time for him to realize he’s being watched right back. 

Hyunjin is gazing at him with literal stars in his eyes, looking absolutely wonderstruck. “You’re even more beautiful in this plane,” he breathes. “Prettier than I ever could have imagined.” 

“As are you,” Felix replies instinctively, in the way one might say that _yes, the sky is blue_ or _no, pigs cannot fly._ The urge to break into hysterical laughter is nearly overpowering, both because his god is standing before him in human form and because he somehow thinks _Felix_ is beautiful. Surely this is just another dream made up by his desperate, anguished mind as a way to escape his true fate. 

Hyunjin, the most resplendent being in the cosmos, a masterpiece in human form, _blushes._

  
“You really think so?” he asks shyly. Coming from anyone else the question would sound vain, even narcissistic, but Hyunjin seems genuinely uncertain about Felix’s reaction. 

“I- of course,” Felix says immediately. “You’re-” he’s not sure he can describe in words the emotions that well up in his chest when he looks at Hyunjin; even if he had the rest of his life to describe it, he’d likely still come up short. 

Thankfully Hyunjin seems to understand that Felix’s silence is awed rather than uncomfortable- he giggles, and the sound rings through the shrine like wind chimes in a breeze. “Thank you. I’m glad you find this form pleasing- I made it for you, after all.”

There’s a sudden lump in Felix’s throat, and he feels strangely faint. Despite the impropriety of it, he lets himself lean back against the altar and focuses on the sharp dig of wood into his side to stay conscious. This is all far, far too much. 

“For me?” He repeats weakly.

Hyunjin nods eagerly. “I tried to adapt my style to suit your tastes as best I could; you _are_ my first bonded in centuries. It seems only appropriate for me to look my best for you.”

 _Bonded?_ Hyunjin had very clearly rejected him during the ceremony; how on earth could they possibly be bonded?

Felix is about to open his mouth and ask when he catches sight of the collapsed forms of the two royal guards right outside the shrine’s entrance. Question forgotten, he blanches and whirls around to look at Hyunjin. 

“Did you kill them?” Felix asks, trying not to panic. While he would give anything to escape being sent to the capital, the thought of taking another’s life for his own desires is unfathomable.

“Of course not,” Hyunjin says, and the tension drains from Felix’s shoulders. “You didn’t ask me to. They will sleep for as long as I will it.”  
  
His voice lowers until it’s something silky and dangerous, offering the barest glimpse of the burning star that is his godly nature within him. “But should you ever wish for it, I would gladly eviscerate anyone that dares stand in your way.”  
  
Felix swallows thickly and tries not to feel too endeared.

“Why didn’t you come to me before?” he asks, and the words feel painfully selfish, but the memories of him crying himself to sleep after the failed bonding ritual are still fresh in his mind. Intentionally or otherwise, Hyunjin had briefly made Felix feel unworthy of even existing; surely he deserves some sort of recompense.

Something in Hyunjin’s face crumples at the question. “You didn’t touch my statue,” he explains, profound regret showing in every inch of his expression. “I wanted so badly to reach you- I tried everything in my power to escape my bonds, but since you hadn’t completed the ritual, I couldn’t approach you.”

“It was anguish watching you cry,” he admits softly. “I wanted to kiss your tears away more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my entire existence.”

“You can,” Felix blurts, and Hyunjin’s eyes widen until he looks like a startled deer, viridescent irises positively glowing in the morning light. “If you want to.”

“I would like nothing more,” Hyunjin whispers, reaching up to cup his face. His fingers are pleasantly cool, and the touch feels oddly comforting despite its unfamiliarity. Felix’s eyes flutter shut in expectation despite himself; though he would love to view Hyunjin’s ethereality up close, it’s entirely possible the sight might blind him with its sheer brilliance.

After what might be seconds or an eternity, soft lips meet his, and it takes every ounce of his self-control not to instantly turn to jelly at the contact. Hyunjin’s lips are softer than rose petals and unimaginably gentle, mouth pressing against Felix as if he’s made of glass.

Felix hasn’t cried since the bonding ritual, but the feeling of being so utterly cherished, foreign as it is blissful, is nearly enough to make him start. The fact that the source of all this affection is a living, breathing _god_ is something he can’t even begin to comprehend. 

After a moment, the overwhelming sensations and prior stress becomes too much, and Felix can feel his legs start to collapse out from under him in exhaustion. Hyunjin doesn’t so much as break their kiss, instead lifting Felix by the hips with a strength impossible for someone so slender and setting him atop the altar like an impossibly delicate offering. Felix lets out a soft yelp in surprise, only for the noise to be immediately swallowed up by Hyunjin as he pushes his tongue into Felix’s mouth. 

To keep himself from positively melting at the feeling, Felix winds his hands into Hyunjin’s hair, absently marveling at how the strands feel softer than silk, before the deity bites his lower lip and he’s jerked back to reality by the pleasure-pain of the sensation with a gasp.

They kiss for an untold amount of time -Felix’s brain is entirely unable to focus on anything that isn’t _Hyunjin Hyunjin Hyunjin_ at present- until his lips start to ache and his lungs are as much of an empty void as his mind. 

“So you- you accept me?” Felix asks softly, nervously, when they finally break apart. The question feels foolish out in the open air, and he blushes as the words leave his mouth, but all Hyunjin does is coo at him, brushing a thumb over his kiss-swollen lips. 

“Lee Felix,” he begins, voice gentle and positively reverent, “you have brought me back from death with the power of your love and kindness. I do not know what I have done to deserve such a blessing, but should you ask it of me I would gladly follow you anywhere for the rest of my existence.”

Felix is blushing so hard he can almost feel the heat radiating from his face, but Hyunjin isn’t done. 

“I have watched you tend to my shrine and bring me to life only out of the goodness of your heart,” he continues softly. “And you are the most radiant soul I have ever had the pleasure of beholding. Of course I love you.” 

“L-love?” Felix stutters, eyes wide. His body feels taut as a wire, like if he hears one more unexpected thing his very being will snap in two and his soul will fly out of his body. He can barely hear over the sound of his own heartbeat thundering in terrified anticipation. 

Hyunjin looks nervous for a moment, as if expecting a rejection, but when no further response comes from Felix he takes a deep breath and falls to his knees. 

“I know this is not what you intended when you pledged a life-bond to me,” he says softly, looking as anxious as Felix feels, “but would you be willing to accept me in this way also?” 

Felix’s response flows from his mouth as easily as his bonding vows had, the answer already long ago decided. “Yes.”

The way Hyunjin’s face lights up could put the sun to shame. “Thank you, thank you, _thank you,”_ he sings, the slightest thrum of godly energy weaving its way through his voice. His smile is so wide it looks near-painful, eyes squeezed shut from the sheer force of it. “I love you, and I swear on my very existence that I will cherish you in the way you deserve until the end of time.”

“I love you too,” Felix replies, so painfully endeared he fears his heart may stop at any moment, “and I will adore you in turn for as long as I live.”

Eyes glowing like miniature galaxies, Hyunjin surges forward in delight, pressing soft kisses to Felix’s forehead, his lips, his cheeks, until he’s giggling so hard he winds himself and has to push the deity away so he can breathe properly again. 

“Where would you like to go now?” Hyunjin asks once Felix has recovered, attentive and expectant. Like Felix could tell him to take them to the very ends of the earth and he would do it without a second thought. 

“I don’t know,” Felix answers after a moment. He’d never expected to have any sort of real freedom in his life, and certainly nothing like this; the whole world is open to him now, and he has no idea where to start. “I don’t have anywhere else I _can_ go.”

“That’s alright,” Hyunjin replies. “This shrine is as much your home as it was mine. We can stay for as long as you’d like.”

As much as Felix wouldn’t mind remaining here until the end of time, in a state of perpetual bliss with his god, they’re far too close to his parents, to the capital, to be completely safe. “Just a little longer,” he decides. “We’ll leave when it’s brighter.”

“Fine by me,” Hyunjin purrs as he shifts forward again, eyes gleaming and near-predatory. 

Felix expects the god to kiss him, and his eyes begin to slide shut expectantly, but Hyunjin instead falls elegantly into a kneel, looking up at Felix coyly from under his lashes. Staring down at his god from atop his own altar, the sight before him is so positively enchanting his heart nearly stops.

“Let me show you the same love you’ve given me,” Hyunjin says breathlessly. “Let me prove to you my devotion.”

He leans closer until he’s trapped within Felix’s outstretched thighs, looking up at him imploringly, and there, with Hyunjin on his knees in front of him, it’s Felix who feels like the god between them. It’s a heady, dizzying thought, and Felix’s whole body feels ready to snap from the sudden tension coiled within it, as if a single touch from Hyunjin might shatter him to nothing.

“Please,” Felix whispers, a prayer, and his god eagerly obliges. 

His legs are gently spread apart to allow Hyunjin more space to work, and his hands burn where they press into Felix’s thighs, grip tight enough to bruise but somehow reverent, adoring all the same. Unconsciously, his hands find their way back into the deity’s hair, brushing the blonde strands carefully out of his eyes. 

“Thank you, my love,” Hyunjin murmurs, soft gaze meeting Felix’s wide-eyed stare. Without warning he leans in between Felix’s legs, tongue peeking through gently-parted lips like the center of a rose in bloom, and suddenly every inch of his brain is overwhelmed with heat and pleasure and thinking becomes much too difficult to bother with.  
  
Lee Felix has offered many things to Hyunjin, god of grace- flowers, trinkets, and time, to name a few. But here, in the center of his god’s sacred shrine, Felix is the one being worshipped.  
  
He may not be any sort of deity. He may never have thousands of devotees, never be known in every corner of the earth for his talents. But so long as Hyunjin is looking at him like this, touching him like this, as if he is the only thing worth loving in all of creation, Felix will be nothing other than content.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if you enjoyed! Comments feed my motivation like nothing else <3
> 
> And come say hi! Let's cry about Hyunlix together ^-^  
> [Twitter ](https://twitter.com/CelSilences)  
> [ CuriousCat ](https://curiouscat.me/CelestialSilences)
> 
> I also do commissions, please check out my info [here ](https://twitter.com/CelSilences/status/1277485845428285441)and dm me if you're interested!!


End file.
